DVD/Stream of the Week: DRINKING BUDDIES – an unusually genuine romantic comedy

Drinking Buddies

In Drinking Buddies, Olivia Wilde plays the only female employee of an urban craft brewery. She and her co-worker best buddy (Jake Johnson) eat their lunches together every day, kid around on the job and join the crew for beers after work. They really connect and share trust with each other, and the two have achieved an enviable level of interpersonal comfort. If this were the typical idiot Hollywood romantic comedy, we could stop watching now, because we would know that they would dump their current significant others (Anna Kendrick and Ron Livingston) in the third act because THEY ARE MEANT FOR EACH OTHER.

But, instead, writer-director Joe Swanberg surprises us with an unusually genuine romantic comedy. The characters act and react – not in the way we’ve come to expect rom com characters to act – but as unpredictably as would real people. Real people can be complex. Real people can make choices out of short-term self-gratification – or they can make sacrifices for the greater good – you don’t always know what’s coming. Swanberg trusts that the audience isn’t demanding a tired formula – and it pays off for him and for us.

Swanberg has also made the first Mumblecore movie that I’ve liked. I was on the verge of writing off the entire cinematic genre because I don’t like to watch self-involved twits obsess over their own avoidable, First World problems. Although Swanberg’s male characters have the Mumblecore bedhead, he makes this movie about a situation that could happen to any of us – discovering a potential soul mate outside our existing relationship. And the characters don’t wring their hands and kvetch – they struggle through the untidy challenge and move on.

The cast is solid, and the glammed-down Olivia Wilde is especially very good here.

DIGGING FOR FIRE: a couple goes wild, then looks inside

Rosemaire DeWitt in DIGGING FOR FIRE
Rosemaire DeWitt in DIGGING FOR FIRE

The romantic comedy Digging for Fire is a reflection on that moment when two people who have loved each other have become so consumed by day-to-day child rearing that they have lost heir way as a couple.  She’s (Rosemarie DeWitt) fed up and drops the three-year-old with her parents, hoping for a wild weekend with girlfriends while he (Jake Johnson) does the taxes. Of course, he invites his guy buddies over for a bro-bacchanal. Things don’t go exactly as planned for either of them, and their separate weekends morph into adventures that challenge their marriage and trigger some self-examination.

Writer-director Joe Swanberg has a gift for creating characters that act like real people – and NOT like they know they are characters in a romantic comedy.   Swanberg created the 2013 Drinking Buddies, a film I found to be “an unusually genuine romantic comedy” and the first Mumblecore movie that I’ve ever liked.

DeWitt and Johnson are very good, and Brie Larson is outstanding as a good time girl who is more – and looking for more – than she seems.  Digging for Fire also features Anna Kendrick (against type as an uninhibited party girl) and Sam Rockwell (who has made playing an unreliable character into its own art form).  We also see almost everyone who has been in an independent film: Mike Birbiglia, Chris Messina, Melanie Lynsky, Sam Elliott, Judith Light and Jane Adams.  Orlando Bloom even drops in as a boor at a bar (albeit an upscale bar).

Two thing for sure:  Joe Swanberg’s characters are never predictable and he is definitely a romantic.  Digging for Fire is available for streaming  from Amazon, Vudu, You Tube and Google Play.

Drinking Buddies: an unusually genuine romantic comedy

Drinking Buddies

In Drinking Buddies, Olivia Wilde plays the only female employee of an urban craft brewery.  She and her co-worker best buddy (Jake Johnson) eat their lunches together every day, kid around on the job and join the crew for beers after work.  They really connect and share trust with each other, and the two have achieved an enviable level of interpersonal comfort.  If this were the typical idiot Hollywood romantic comedy, we could stop watching now, because we would know that they would dump their current significant others (Anna Kendrick and Ron Livingston) in the third act because THEY ARE MEANT FOR EACH OTHER.

But, instead, writer-director Joe Swanberg surprises us with an unusually genuine romantic comedy.  The characters act and react – not in the way we’ve come to expect rom com characters to act – but as unpredictably as would real people.  Real people can be complex.  Real people can make choices out of short-term self-gratification – or they can make sacrifices for the greater good – you don’t always know what’s coming.  Swanberg trusts that the audience isn’t demanding a tired formula – and it pays off for him and for us.

Swanberg has also made the first Mumblecore movie that I’ve liked.    I was on the verge of writing off the entire cinematic genre because I don’t like to watch self-involved twits obsess over their own avoidable, First World problems.  Although Swanberg’s male characters have the Mumblecore bedhead, he makes this movie about a situation that could happen to any of us – discovering a potential soul mate outside our existing relationship.  And the characters don’t wring their hands and kvetch – they struggle through the untidy challenge and move on.

The cast is solid, and the glammed-down Olivia Wilde is especially very good here.

Drinking Buddies is available on DVD from Netlix and Redbox and streaming from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, GooglePlay and XBOX Live.